


When All The Songs Are Sung

by ideserveyou



Category: Arthur of the Britons
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideserveyou/pseuds/ideserveyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their decisive battle with the Picts, Arthur and Kai make a reckoning of their own</p>
            </blockquote>





	When All The Songs Are Sung

The Minstrel’s song is done; he bows courteously to the high seat, and takes his leave.

The fire crackles; the three of us sit quiet, each busy with his own thoughts.

Presently Llud hauls himself off the bench and stretches. ‘Time for an old warrior to rest. Young ones too. It’s been a long day, and you but newly off your sick-bed, Arthur.’

Our father never stops taking care of his boys. I smile. ‘Soon, Llud. My cup’s not empty yet.’

‘Very well.’ Llud puts out his good hand to ruffle Kai’s hair, as he still likes to do when he can get away with it. ‘But mind you two don’t keep me awake with your talking. I know there is much to discuss, but tomorrow will do for that. I need my sleep.’

‘I, too.’ I cannot help yawning. ‘It was good to be back in the saddle, but…’ I grimace as I straighten my back.

Llud nods. ‘You’ll be stiff tomorrow. Still, at least, the gods willing, we shan’t have to fight. We’ve earned our peace the hard way, and let’s hope we keep it for a while.’

He creaks away across the longhouse, into the shadows of the sleeping-place.

Kai sits at my feet, watching the fire, cradling the last of the mead in those big hands.

A silence has fallen: a silence that must be broken. I am in no hurry to break it; the peace and stillness is welcome after the savagery of today’s battle.

It’s been too long since we simply sat here, myself and my brother, at our ease, with no more need of fighting.

But Llud is right: we do have need of words. Much was resolved today, but more remains to be settled, and closer to home…

I set down my drink and say quietly: ‘Kai?’

‘Mmm?’ Kai doesn’t look round, but his whole body tenses: waiting.

‘Are you still angry with me?’

Kai traces a fingertip around the rim of his cup: exactly half-way, and then back again. ‘A little, yes. But with myself more.’

‘I am sorry.’ I slide off the chair to sit on the dais beside Kai, not quite touching him.

‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’ Kai shakes his head emphatically. ‘It was I who said –’

‘You were right.’

‘No.’ Kai’s mouth shuts into a hard line; he stares straight ahead, into the heart of the flames.

I can feel the warmth of his body; hear his breath catch as he bites back more bitter words. I must speak with care. ‘You were right to be angry. Wrong about the strategy, but right about my leadership. I should not have treated you so.’

‘I let you down.’

‘You did your best. I was too hard on you.’

‘Not as hard as I have been on myself. I was so afraid –’ He bites his lip.

I lay a hand on his arm. ‘The painted ones strike terror into even such hearts as Llud’s.’

‘No, you fool, not of the battle. Of coming home afterwards, and finding the death-fires lit for you, and the women wailing…’

‘And you think I did not sit here, every day, fearing that you would be carried in on a cloak slung between two spears, with a Pictish arrow through your throat?’

I had not meant to speak of this, and there is still much I cannot tell: how hard it was to wait and hope throughout each day, and watch the sad little procession of casualties coming into the hall each nightfall; to see the women toiling over the injured, or weeping for the dead, and to feel such guilty relief that my Kai was not among them…

A half-burnt log falls out of the fire; I lean forward to push it back, then sit with my head bowed to my knees, letting my hair hide my face.

‘Llud was right. You’ll be stiff tomorrow.’ Kai’s voice is warm and deep; he lays his hands on my shoulders and begins to rub in slow circles.

‘Thank you, Kai,’ I say, when I can trust myself to speak again.

From the far corner of the hall comes a wheezy snore that can only be Llud’s, and we both stifle a laugh.

I look up, and our eyes meet.

‘You’re welcome,’ Kai says gruffly.

‘Not just for this.’ I lean gratefully into Kai’s touch. ‘I meant, for the whole. For staying loyal. For taking on the burden of command, when I could not. For not going out and getting yourself killed in the heat of your anger. And for forgiving me.’

‘How could I do otherwise?’

‘Kai, I – Ah, yes. Just there… My heart, I have but one more order to give you, and then I think we may perhaps begin again.’

‘Another order?’ He sounds wary; I cannot blame him.

‘Just this: forgive yourself.’

‘I… will do my best to obey. And then?’

My back is aching and burning with the fires of hell, but my soul is at peace, soothed by the touch of my brother’s hand, by the hesitant hope in his beloved voice. I sit up, and lean on Kai’s shoulder; slide an arm around his waist.

‘And then, as I said, we can begin again.’

 

…

A new start. It is more than I dared to hope for; more than I deserve.

Arthur is leaning on me now, not grudgingly but willingly, as he never did all the while he was sick.

‘It hurt you too, when I was burned,’ he says, burying his face in my neck. ‘I had not thought. You had to watch.’

‘You had to endure it.’

‘And Llud, too, putting fire to my flesh…’

‘I’m sure all is well with Llud.’

I have not told Arthur, nor ever will, how I went out for air, when I was certain at last that he was sleeping; and how I chanced on our father leaning against a tree in the moonlight, head bowed and shoulders shaking.

I crept away and left him to his grief.

That was the final straw for me. Those painted barbarians were to blame. I hated them with all my soul.

I wanted as many dead as I could strike down, no matter what the cost. When I had them pinned against the river, I gave the order to attack without hesitation.

Twelve death-fires were lit in our village that night.

Arthur would not have acted so. He would have put the common good above his private vengeance. He is a better man than I.

That is why he is our leader, and I his follower.

And now he is leading me home, and I am the one with fire in my flesh.

Arthur’s head is heavy on my shoulder; his hair silk-soft against my neck.

‘Come,’ I say. ‘Let us do as our father advises, and… rest.’

He nods, and lets me help him to his feet. Arms around each other’s shoulders, we pick our way from the hearth to our sleeping-place across the gloomy hall, mindful of the pallets where the wounded lie. A sleepy voice murmurs something; Arthur leans down to offer a word of reassurance, and the injured warrior lies quiet again.

A makeshift curtain has been slung across the room, screening our three beds from view. Llud is snoring in his corner, and does not stir as I turn down the blankets on Arthur’s bed.

I am about to do the same for my own, but Arthur reaches for me. ‘I’ll need help with getting this tunic off.’

After his injury he insisted on dressing each day and undressing each night, although it was a struggle; he bitterly resented my help, whether I offered it or whether I waited for him to ask. But tonight he is docile and grateful, and everything comes off easily…

I look away.

Then his hands are on my shoulders.

‘Kai, would you… keep me company, tonight?’

‘But your back…’ I cannot bear the thought of it. I left the tending of the wound to Llud as much as I could, and when the bandage could be taken off, still I turned my head away from the dead white furrow left by the knife-tip, and the knotted, shiny weals of the burning. I swallow hard. ‘Your scar –’

‘Is healed. See.’

He lies on the bed, face-down, to let me look.

The scar stands out against his pale skin; not as angry as when I last saw it, nor as dreadful as I remembered. I make myself touch it, accepting it as part of Arthur, part of this – of us, together.

I must learn, I tell myself. Learn to feel, not angry that he was hurt, but glad that he is whole, and mine.

Arthur shivers. I pull the heavy fur covering gently over his naked body.

‘I wasn’t cold.’ His smile flashes white in the gloom. ‘Come here to me.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘We’ll have to be careful…’

That is enough for me. I strip hastily, and Llud snores on, and we are careful, with the care of long practice: stifling our sharp indrawn breaths and tiny whimpers beneath the blankets, moving slowly and evenly, not to make the bedstead creak.

Arthur lies atop me, propped on his elbows, his legs between mine. I can feel the heat of his hard cock, so close to my own…

Carefully, he moves until our lengths are just touching, brushing lightly: any more would undo us both.

He leans down to kiss me, and as his lips meet mine, I feel tears prickling behind my eyelids.

‘I know, my heart, I know,’ he murmurs. ‘We so nearly lost all…’

I shake my head. ‘Do not speak of it. Let us just be thankful that we are here to begin again.’

‘I _am_ thankful.’ He kisses me again, and I feel his mouth quirking into a smile. ‘And we had best begin soon, before anything… unexpected happens, and wakens Llud.’

I run my hands down his back, and grip the curves of his arse, to bring him closer to me. He is warm, and alive, and he smells of sweat and horses; I breathe in deep.

He grips my shoulders, and presses close, his hardness rolling deliciously against mine.

As one, we hold our breath; as one, we let it out again, and begin to move together, rocking to and fro, letting the slow waves of feeling carry us along.

Sometimes we can spend an hour or more like this; but not tonight. ‘It’s too good,’ I whisper, ‘I can’t hold back, help me…’

Arthur hushes me, and pulls the blanket right up over our heads, enclosing us in a stuffy, musky darkness, our refuge from the world.

Then he reaches down between us and takes both of us in hand, and though he covers my mouth with his, I know I am not exactly silent as his strong, sweat-slicked fingers bring us both to the peak, leaving us gasping and shuddering and soaked with our mingled issue.

‘Thank you.’ Arthur lays his head on my shoulder; I can feel his heart pounding. ‘I needed that.’

‘We needed that.’

‘We should have done it sooner, perhaps.’

‘You were too hurt.’ I stroke his back, no longer troubling to avoid the scar.

‘We both were.’

‘No longer. Unless… did I hurt you, did it make your back worse, just now?’

‘Not at all. Well, perhaps a little. But I’ll sleep the better for it, and as Llud always says, sleep is the best medicine of all… Talking of which, do you think he heard us?’

I am thankful to discover, as I crawl out into the cold air to grope for a rag to clean up, that our father is still snoring as tranquilly and evenly as ever. I thank the gods that he is such a sound sleeper, and crawl back in beside Arthur, who is soon snoring peacefully on his own account.

The fire in my flesh has eased to a steady glow: the warmth of homecoming.

All is right with the world; or at least, if it is not quite right yet, we have made a good new start.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to trepkos for beta-reading. You always make these stories better!


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